Tara Brach - 2015-03-04 - Sure Heart's Release

Episode Date: March 7, 2015

2015-03-04 - Sure Heart's Release - The pathway to our awaken heart includes deep recognition of our barriers to love, and as we open, the courage to express our love. This talk includes a reflection and practice that can support us in inhabiting our full capacity for loving presence.

The following talk is given by Tara Brock, meditation teacher, psychologist, and author. Namaste and welcome. So I'll begin this talk with a short story. A woman described some years ago that a tired old dog had come into her yard and walked in her door and followed her into the house down a hall and jumped on her couch and took a nap for an hour. And she left the dog be because it, you know, it didn't have tags but had a collar and it looked well fed. And it was a nice dog, and her dogs didn't mind. So it was fine.

Dog after an hour left and the next day, the same thing happened. That the dog came, walked in the house, jumped on her couch, took a nap for an hour, and this went on for a week. And so the woman got curious, and she pinned a little note to the dog's collar and she said, you know, your dog's been coming to my house every day and taking a nap. And I don't mind, but I just want to make sure it's okay with you. Well, the next day, the dog came back and it had another note pinned to its collar, to her. And the note read this. It said, he lives in a home with three children in it.

He's trying to catch up on his sleep. May I come with him tomorrow? So I wanted to start off with that story, mostly because I found it when I first heard. It's just so kind of heartwarming, the sense of we're all in it together. There was a kind of feeling of empathy that crossed species, and it was sweet in that way. And so many of us are aware from an evolutionary perspective that empathy, this capacity to sense into and feel for others, seems to be hardwired. It's not just humans.

Lab rats, it seems, will free a trapped companion before eating the treat that's been put out. for it. There's a sense of caring about another creature and then the brains of humans and other pro-social creatures actually have a part of the brain a neural circuit a region of neural circuitry that's dedicated to bonding and feeling resonance and attunement to relationship and it's absolutely essential for survival and as we know in our lives this activation of this part of our brain and this experience, a heart experience of connection,

is, you know, it's what makes our lives meaningful and beautiful. So what happens in our lives, I mean, the language of it in an evolutionary sense is that sometimes the more primitive systems of fight, flight, freeze take over, and we all get hijacked. It happens to all of us. And sometimes it dominates, but it seems that there's a chance,

trajectory, this hopeful trajectory, whereby we're moving from what's called fight, flight, freeze, where that's in action a lot of the time. We're in a kind of reactivity of grasping and pushing away and trying to control our world, where that is being more and more replaced by a capacity of consciousness for attending and befriending, for being able to witness what's going on, but not in a distant way, witness in a very engaged way, so there's presence, but we're not hooked. And I think it's a really interesting question for many of us, whether this is something we wish is happening

to the consciousness of the universe, or whether it's really happening, whether we really sense that consciousness is evolving in this way. And I know for myself what I do is use as a touchstone what I'm experiencing, what other people report experiencing, and you might sense for yourself in the span of your life, and you might even check the last 10 years, whether you feel that there is a waking up going on. And the sign of it is that you find you're more intentional about being present and awake. And so maybe I'll turn that into a question, because I like

asking these kind of questions. How many of you feel that you can sense over the last decade unawakening in your own consciousness? Can I see my hands? Okay, for those that are listening to the podcast, the hands went up and down really quickly. So, but I'm thinking it seemed like a lot of hands for like maybe 90%. Aristotle wrote, the true nature of anything is the highest it can become. So from a spiritual perspective, that would mean that our true nature, our essence, is really reflected by what our potential is for unconditional loving, for being awake, open, present. That that's our potential. And it's described in the Buddhist text in the Majima Nakaya. This is a verse that I've always loved.

it's always spoken to me, and I want to read it to you, the expression of this wakefulness. The purpose of the holy life does not consist in acquiring merit, honor, or fame, nor in gaining morality, concentration, or the eye of knowledge. That unshakable deliverance, the sure hearts release. The sure hearts release. That indeed is the object of the holy life.

That is its essence. That is its goal. that unshakable deliverance, the sure hearts release. So there's something about that language that I love, the sure hearts release. And for me, I get a sense of, you know, when we say release, release from that bind of believing in that story that we're separate, that we're an entity kind of operating on this planet, navigating a life on our way somewhere. It's the freedom from that. It's the waking up from that.

It's the release from that. The sure heart's release is the release into this realization of the awareness that's really the essence, this wakeful openness that's really our primordial being. It's realizing that belonging, that connection. And so what I'd like to explore tonight in this class are what I consider as the two key capacities. in our unfolding that give rise to the short heart's release.

Two key capacities that we're actually training in as we do spiritual practices, but there's a way that I like to think of them, a sequence that I find is really helpful. And it correlates with a tend and be friend. And that is the first of the capacities is that we can honestly see where our contractions or barriers are to love and freedom. that we begin to really see them or start moving through the day and we actually can contact and sense our blocks

and sense the vulnerability that's under it. We wouldn't have contractions if we weren't protecting against something, right? And part of the whole story of a separate self is that there's something we need to protect. So that's the first part is that we can actually shine a light that's really honest.

Right on, okay, so where are the contractions? How am I holding back from what's possible. And then the second capacity is one of expression. We not only block ourselves from vulnerability and from the love that's underneath it, but we also hold back from expressing our love. And I'll be inviting you to reflect on this a little bit

as we go on in this talk. But just to say that both of these capacities, whether it's learning to shine a light and we're really looking to see, well, how am I protecting myself? How am I blocked? Are expressing ourselves. Both of these takes a real conscious intentionality. Because it goes against our conditioning.

Because it's scary. It's uncomfortable. It's unfamiliar. So it takes a real intentionality. And both of those qualities can only be developed, not only if we're intentional, but if we bring it right to the grounds of, who are we hanging out with tonight, tomorrow, whether it's our friends, partners,

colleagues, like it has to be applied in our life for real in our moments. How am I blocking in this relationship? How am I causing separation here? What am I not expressing right here? So this is, as Glenn mentioned earlier, I'm doing very shortly, going to be doing an online course on this that stretches over six weeks, how to the sure hearts release, how to wake in these hearts and relationships. And if that's something you're interested, and just go to my website for it.

But tonight and through the course, I'm going to ground some of this exploration and a verse from Rumi that I always find kind of nails it in terms of looking honestly. And I'm going to start by reading it. that your path is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you've built against it. Okay? That's not to seek for love.

We're not going after something. And the reason, well, the assumption of this, the love and the awareness and the purity that we seek is already here. It's what we are. And the path is more of an undoing of the obscurations, of the barriers, of the blocks that are preventing us from realizing that. So it's an undoing. We don't have to try to get somewhere.

Okay, so Rumi's talking about really shining a light on what are our habitual ways of creating separation. The image, and I'll carry this over from our class last week, that can be helpful is of a dragon with scales, as the poet Rilke described it, that we all have these dragons our lives, we all have the scaliness that is in some way defending our hearts,

and that underneath those scales is a sensitivity and a vulnerability that if we can really open to will sense in its very essence is longing for love and love itself. but we have to be willing we have to have that courage to shine a light on the scales

and then sense what's underneath there and it's not necessarily a big one-shot some big dramatic one-shot it's over and over again and all the little ways through the day we'll talk about that a bit more so in our last class one of the big barriers

that we started looking at and I pretty much bring it up almost every time I talk because I keep running into it through all the moments of my day is judgment. That we get very scaly with judgment. And even when it's not overt judgment of, oh, that person's really terrible or I'm really terrible, there's these subtle ways that we put up and put down ourselves and others.

So judgment and blame. And it's usually pointed inward and deep down there's a sense of unworthiness or unloavability. Because most of us move through the day and we might not be conscious of it, but we have these standards in our mind of how we should be. Very, very early on, they were internalized messages from our parents and our culture

of how we should be, how we should look, how we should act, how successful we should be. We have these standards, and we're trying to get it right. You know, on some level, we're trying to be who we should be and, of course, upset about not meeting the grade. So there's a lot of a kind of straining, and this is part of the scaliness,

a straining to be a certain way and not make mistakes. And one of the little essays I love that kind of says why this is challenging reads as follows. The Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or the Americans. The French eat a lot of fat and also suffer fewer heart attacks than the Brits of the Americans. Now, the Japanese drink very little red wine, and they suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or the Yanks. The Italians drink huge amounts of red wine, and they also suffer fewer heart attacks than they above. The Germans drink a lot of beers, and they say, well, it goes on and on and on.

This is the conclusion. Eat and drink what you like. Speaking English is what kills you. We're always trying to get it right, and this world does not cooperate. And so we can't. So the design of the human animal, if we're very, very, you know, just looking at how it is, is that we have a nervous system that is designed to have a range of emotions. It's designed to get aggressive.

It's designed to be self-centered and grasping. it's designed to be self-centered period. And this conditioning is really what we're judging. I mean, if we're really honest with ourselves, we are very sometimes horrified by our experience of ourselves because this nervous system that I'm describing, we all have. And the more we've had trauma in our lives, the more we've grown up in our family of origin

with a lack of understanding, the more unmet needs the more agitated that nervous system gets, and then we don't like ourselves for that. And in a way what I'm saying right now is probably one of the greatest hubs of our suffering that there is, is that we don't like the way we are.

It's not our fault. I mean, we're given this nervous system, all the background conditioning happens, but then we don't like the fact that we are the way we are. And those are scales, because in any moment that you're judging yourself, in any moment that you're judging yourself, you're unable to be with the actual vulnerability that's here in a way that can relax open your heart.

Perfectionism gets in the way of love. If we're trying to be perfect, we're not bringing a sincere presence to how we are in the moment, which is the only portal to a loving, awake heart. So we use self-judgment and self-aversion as a scale because as long as we're judging ourselves, we feel like at least we're controlling ourselves into being a better person.

So we feel we're doing something. And the option, if we dropped our judgment, there's a feeling like then we just are going to be powerlessly, helplessly stuck in our unworthiness. So in a similar way, Another scale is the way we judge others. And if we're honest, it goes on a lot, anger and resentment and judgment. And I like the way Rita Rudner puts it.

She says, my grandmother was a very tough and judgmental woman. She buried three husbands. Two of them were just napping. There's a cartoon. There's a lot of cartoons with dogs as therapists and dogs. as patients and this one has a dog as a therapist and the dog is a patient and the patient saying I bark at everything you can't go wrong that way you know but you get the idea that's the dragon this again it's like there's vulnerability in here and

you just that's another habit that we lock into of just in some way criticizing blaming attacking what's around us and often I'll lead workshops that were one of our explorations will be to look at what's under the scales of judgment. And, you know, I'll just share with you a few people's response when I asked the question, well, if you had to let go of making that other person wrong, you can consider this yourself if you have a place you're really judging someone. If you had to let go of the notion that that person's bad or wrong, what's difficult that you'd have to then end up coming into contact with?

It's a really, really useful question. It's like, what's the vulnerability under that scale? So I'll give you some examples. One person said, well, when I put aside judging my partner had to face my fear that he didn't really want to be with me. So you can imagine the scale of, I'm just judging, judging, but then when you stop judging, you guys, oh, it's because I'm afraid I'm not loved.

Another person was looking under his blame towards his teenage son, and he realized that as long he was blaming his son, he didn't have to feel like a failure as a parent. Well, I know that one very well myself. Another said, well, if I stop being angry in my current relationship, then I'd have to face the fear

that I'll be taking advantage of again or manipulated as I was in the past. So a lot of our scales are created from the past, but we bring them into our current experience because underneath is a fear that the same thing is going to happen again. And just as it is with judging ourselves, when we're judging others, we're not able to actually connect with the vulnerability under the judgment and heal and discover

really a freedom in our hearts. So I'm just going to name a few other scaly areas, ways that we protect ourselves. The obvious ones are we numb ourselves with medication, with food, we numb ourselves by working and not paying attention to what's going on inside our bodies. We leave.

So those are the real obvious ones. But I want to mention one more. which is that we spend a lot of time, if you think of a relationship that's important to you, but you realize you're not fully there for it, fixating anxiously on something else so as not to really pay attention to what's going on with that person, on our plans, on our busyness.

We get preoccupied. And so it's an interesting question. What would you have to feel if you actually deepened your attention to what was going on for that other person. One man said, a man with an overbearing mother, said, well, I'd have to feel like I was losing myself, that I'd be overwhelmed and suffocated by her needs. Another woman was doing a workshop years ago.

Ram Dass taught a class in Oakland, gave on service, on helping other people. And very much affected one woman, because she had been, for the last few years, before that, she would pass by a metro stop and always give a little money, a little change to a homeless man that was there. But once she did this workshop, she realized that she had never really looked him in the eye. And she was afraid to, and when she explored that further, she said this, she said, because if I really looked him in the eye, if I really looked at him, he'd be sleeping

on my living room couch. So one of our scales is to avert our attention. So we don't really pay attention to who's here. Because we're afraid if we really pay attention, we'd be overwhelmed, we'd get possessed, we maybe would have our hearts broken. Let me ask you to reflect on your own life now, just to check in and see what's true for you. Just consider these few moments, say pause. And in this pause, begin by just connecting with your breath, feeling your breath, feeling your body, to realize the true heart's release. We begin by looking at the barriers, the ways we create separation at our own scales. So I wonder if you might bring to mind a relationship that matters to you, a relationship that your intention,

is to continue becoming closer, more awake, more loving. You might sense that person close in in maybe a regular place that you are together, how your interactions go, and let your inquiry be very simple.

So how do I create separation here? Clearly, it's always a dance. But just sense for yourself, your own scales. What are your own behaviors that in some way create distance? Distance from yourself, distance from the other. Do you not really pay attention like the woman who described not looking the homeless man in the eye? Do you not really look to see what's going on with the other person?

Do you hold on to some judgments of that person? that creates distant? Or you may be judging yourself in some way that makes it difficult to become more intimate. If you have a sense of your scales, how you are defending or protecting or distancing, you might deepen your inquiry and ask yourself, what is it that I'm not wanting to feel?

And before we close this reflection, if there's something difficult that you're aware, aware of in the field, to just take a moment to offer a gesture of kindness to yourself, knowing that this is a, perhaps the most challenging and difficult of all human experiences, to begin to go towards that place of vulnerability that we've been protecting for so long. So kindness is the only way in. just to appreciate what you're noticing and offer kindness to your own being. You're ready, open your eyes, or if you'd prefer continuing with your eyes closed, that's quite fine too.

The awakening of empathy, the sure heart's release, requires contact with what's real, seeing the barriers and connecting with where the real vulnerability is. And it's interesting that there's studies now that show that if we're in some way removed from our experience, that clearly we can't arouse empathy. And there's at UC Berkeley in the last year or so there was a study that described how wealth might get in the way of empathy. makes sense. If you're wealthy, you're removed in some ways

from some of the struggles that other people have. The wealthiest 20% give less to charity in terms of a fraction of income than the poorest 20%. How come? We can sense it. You can sense it in the same way with the dominant

population if we begin to get a sense of the privilege that comes and I'll speak just to race of white privilege. We really get a sense of the current that carries us that we're not always aware of, whether it's income or access to jobs or access to housing, if we're not aware of that, then we're not going to have a sense of empathy for those that are actually having to face it over and over again the disadvantages, the oppression, the injustices. We only have empathy if we're in contact

with the experience. And that takes, again, putting ourselves closer in to be in contact. Now, sometimes we are in contact, and it's very clear the way empathy arises. I was reading recently about a prison project. It's called the Group of Hope that is in South Africa, and it really touched me. This was a group that started in 2002, and they began by helping prisoners with AIDS. These are inmates themselves that were helping other prisoners who had AIDS. They had a vegetable garden, growing vegetables for them,

writing get-well cards and visiting them in the infirmatory. But then somebody brought an orphan who had AIDS to the prison and the prisoners adopted that orphan and so the orphan would visit them once a week

and they insisted on, they cut up all their civilian clothes to create some clothes. for the child, they began another project of adopting orphans with AIDS. And then they'd come and visit their inmate fathers once a month, and the inmates began to make beads and beaded necklaces and sell them so that they could get money to support the orphan. So this became a whole community kind of circular process that gave incredible meaning and aliveness to the inmates. How come this all happen? They're so close into the suffering that their hearts naturally responded to it. So we start looking at our own lives and there's this key understanding that comes up that our

habit, and this is our given human temperament, is that we're going to avoid vulnerability if we can get away with it. It's going to be our flinch response to pull away until we start realizing from that, there's a wisdom within us that really starts getting it, that being available, letting ourselves be touched by what's really difficult inside ourselves, by what's going on for others, actually allows the skills to fall away, and this incredible blessing of experiencing loving,

this blessing of it. But it takes intentionality. It takes intentionality to let ourselves be touched and to express. Some of you might have read a book. It's called Offerings at the Wall. And this is a, there's about 90,000 letters and mementos that veterans from Vietnam, war in Vietnam, put on the wall, on the monument wall over the years, and they were collected and put into this book.

So I want to read one of, one of, one of them to you. And this was placed in the wall in 1989. It's a worn, and there was a worn photograph of a young Vietnamese man and a little girl of them together. It was placed on the wall along with this letter that I'm reading you. Dear sir, for 22 years, I've carried your picture in my wallet. I was only 18 years old that day we faced one another on the trail

in Chulai, Vietnam. Why you did not take my life, I'll never know. Forgive me for taking your life. I was reacting just the way I was trained. So many times over the years, I've stared at your picture and your daughter. I suspect each time my heart would burn with the pain of guilt. I have two daughters of my own now.

I perceive you as a brave soldier defending his homeland. Above all else, I can now respect the importance life held for you. I suppose that's why I'm able to be here today. It's time for me to continue the life process and release the pain and guilt. Forgive me, sir. So the man that wrote this letter, Richard Luttrell, he did exactly that. He leaned into where the vulnerability was. He kept that picture and he kept looking at it. He was willing to face the realness of the loss of a human life and his part in that. and that's what allowed him to keep on growing and transforming and really to forgive himself. So for many years after I heard this story, I would share it.

And then about four years ago, somebody said, that's not the end of the story. So I'm going to tell you more about the same story. So Richard Farley kind of released a lot and left this on the wall. And then, of course, the book got put together, and then somebody came back to him with the book. said, look, here you are in the book. So here he had this letter. He'd finally kind of let go, and it was back in his hands again. So here's what he did.

He decided he wanted to go to Vietnam and meet the little girl who's in the picture, and he found her. So I want to tell you a little bit about that meeting. She's a 40-year-old woman, Lan Trung Nogang, and through an interpreter, Richard introduced himself. And he said, tell her, this is the photo I took from her father's wallet the day I shot and killed him, and I'm returning it. And then with a cracking voice, he asked for her forgiveness. After in an awkward moment, Lon burst into tears and fell into his arms, and there the two held each other up, sobbing and embracing.

Her brother said that both of them believed that their father's spirit lived on in Richard. They expect that others would think that's just superstition, they said, but for them today is the day that their father's spirit came back to them. So these two elements of the sure heart's release, facing and contacting the vulnerability by really looking like, how are we creating separation, opening to what's there, and then expressing that Richard, you know, in a way his father's spirit did live on in Richard,

in the sense that he stayed connected and then he expressed his love. So I want to emphasize that expressing love is a essential component in the sure heart's release. We assume others know and we hold back expressing. I mean, really, you might consider how often it is that you look someone in the eyes and really look, and behold that being's realness and goodness and say, I love you.

Without having a little bit of it being packaged or a little bit of it being kind of self-conscious and looking away or joking a little, how often do we do that? The reason we don't is because it's scary, right? There's something in us that's afraid that we won't be well-received. And yet for compassion or love to be full-blown, they need to be expressed. I was talking about the neural net in the brain, that region that's dedicated to empathy and love. And the compassion area is quite near the motor cortex. So compassion is this feeling of, I care about your suffering, but it's also this action.

it moves to action, I want to be helpful. That's part of it. It's the expression. So in the loving kindness practice that we often do, there is really two parts, and one is to sense a being that you care about and sense their goodness. So you arouse that feeling of appreciation,

but then you offer a phrase, you offer your love. It's action. A few weeks ago I was up at the Forest Refuge for a silent retreat, and my practice was a mix of just simple presence, awareness of what is, and this loving-kindness practice, where I'd bring people to mind and offer care. And often the loving-kindness practice starts with ourselves,

and so I'd in some way, whether it was a feeling of where I felt vulnerable or whatever, I'd let myself feel that. And as a way of offering a blessing inward, I had a kind of image or sense of the whole fueled around me being filled with loving presence and that in some way the beloved was kissing me on the forehead. And it was just a sense of this blessing of being held in presence, held in love.

It was beautiful. I really felt myself embraced by love. And then I would bring to mind different people in my life. And with each one, I tried to practice what I was describing earlier that's hard for us to do. I'd imagine looking at them right in the eye and either having my hand on their cheek or kissing them on the brow or in some way a gesture and saying their name and saying, I love you. And this became like an incredibly delicious practice. It was amazing that because I was safe because I wasn't actually with the person, I could really, really explore what was like to do that.

And the experience of how much visceral sense of warmth and openness and love was surging through by taking the time to really do that, to offer that blessing and that kiss to each person. And then I started seeing people walking, we were in this silent retreat, nobody looks at each other, but I kind of sense other people as part of the retreat. And I would imagine the same thing with them. I would see this one elderly gentleman, he and I kept passing each other. And I imagine just him sitting at lunch at one day,

and I imagine kind of bending over and kissing him on the brow and saying, I so appreciate and love having your presence here. And then my heart just absolutely flooded with love for this person I'd never talked to. But there was a realness in it. There was a realness because I was practicing that expression. It's like when we're really present, the pure expression of that presence is love. And I was letting that happen.

I was letting it out, not holding it back. Ticknard Han puts it this way. He says, when you say something like, I love you with your whole being, not just with your mouth or intellect, it can change the whole world. It can free our hearts, the hearts of others as well.

And how it does it, it really affirms the truth that we're not separate. It lets us feel that sense of the truth of our connection. Another story for you before we close, and then we'll do a little meditation. This is a short essay by a surgeon, Richard Seltzer. I stand by the bed where a young woman lies, her face postoperative, her mouth twisted in palsy, clownish.

A tiny twig of the facial nerve, the one the muscles of her mouth have been severed. She'll be thus from now on. The surgeon had followed with religious fervor the curve of her flesh, I promise you that. Nevertheless, to remove the tumor in her cheek, I had to cut the little nerve. her husband her young husband is in the room he stands on the opposite side of the bed and together they seem to dwell

in the evening lamplight isolated from me private who are they I asked myself he in this rye mouth I have made who gaze at each other and touch each other so generously the young woman speaks will my mouth always be like this she asked

yes I say it will it's because the nerve was cut She nods and is silent, but the young man smiles. I like it, he says. It's kind of cute. All at once I know who he is. I understand and I lower my gaze. One is not bold in an encounter with a God.

Unmindful, he bends to kiss her crooked mouth, and I am so close I can see how he twists his own lips to accommodate to hers to show her that their kiss still works. We're really exploring what makes it possible, this sure hearts release, this freedom of our hearts. I feel like it's the freedom to experience living love. It's not an idea any longer. It's the pure expression of our awareness. And so really looking at these two components and sensing that in our life, if we really want to,

to awaken, to live and inhabit the full potential of who we are. What it asks of us is a deep intention to keep shining alight on where we're creating separation, to have the courage and the willingness to ask that question, to look at that scaleliness and sense, okay, it's judgment and not to judge the judging, but rather just to bring that honesty, because in that moment of, honest recognition. The scales become more transparent. And we open to a vulnerability that while we've been afraid of it and we've been pushing away, when we actually open to it, we can find in the very essence of it, interior to that vulnerability, is love itself. We open into that.

and then to complete the flowering, the sure hearts release, we express our love actively in our world. Now it happens in great ways for many people. When people are dying, often there's that sure heart's release where there's really that sense of there's nothing left to defend against. And in that grief, there's also this incredible freedom, to love and not hold back. We've touched that. And we feel when we touch it, we realize that this is more the truth of who I am. This reality is more real than any of the stories

I've been in on what I should do or shouldn't do and what's happening with other people. This is the reality that we long to live in all of our life. We experience at deaths, we experience it at births, we experience it at poignant moments. what really brings the spiritual path alive is when we start bringing that consciousness into the million little moments of our life with each other into those million little moments where we pause and we pause a little bit extra longer and we sense well what's really going on

for this person now and we look into their eyes to see or we catch ourselves with a judgment and we say come on that's not really who I am and sends underneath it the vulnerability and be kind the million little moments so we'll close tonight with a meditation

that just gives us an opportunity to touch in a little to the sure heart's release again the invitations to come sitting in a sitting stick relaxing, whatever you might notice might be relaxed. You feel that you could bring the breath right to the heart area,

as if the heart itself is breathing, opening to receive, with the out breath letting go. You might feel into your being and sense if there's any layering of vulnerability, any place in you that is wanting, acceptable, wanting acceptance and inclusion right now, sensing that place to you that most wants to feel loved, that most wants to feel loving. You might imagine and sense that your own awakened, loving presence, this whole field that's right here is blessing you, just to feel yourself embraced.

You might, as I did, sense that blessing of a kiss on the forehead. or you might otherwise sense in some way perhaps you might want to put your hand on your heart but sense that the love of this universe, your own awakened being, vast and infinite, is in a very immediate way holding and loving and blessing you. There may be words,

whatever words most communicate that love and feeling the heart space that's here, including others in your life. And you might bring to mind a person earlier you were reflecting on someone that you'd like to feel more your heart more awake and loving with, more closeness. And invite that person right here, close in, and take a moment to see his or her eyes. and see behind those eyes, and in that being the vulnerability, the natural human vulnerability, someone that wants to feel loved and loving, that's afraid, that like ourselves, has ways

of feeling unworthy, not okay, and also to sense the essential goodness of this being, his or her longing for truth, to know truth, to love well, to be awake, and then expressing your love in a way that really resonates for you. You might imagine looking the person in the eyes and communicating in words or offering a touch, a kiss, a hug, some gesture of love. experiment and sense what most communicates your care. Notice as you express love, the experience of your own space, of being, of heart. Just sense who you are when you're inhabiting living love and sensing the edgelessness,

the vastness of heart space that includes this whole living, dying world. So you can sense you're holding the earth our mother in your lap and all beings everywhere in your heart. We close with a simple prayer. May all beings everywhere realize the blessings of loving presence, realizing their basic essence as loving presence. May all beings everywhere live from this awareness, expressing compassion and care. May that loving ripple out. May this earth be healed. May all beings awaken and be free.

Namaste and thank you. The teaching you have received has been freely offered. If you'd like to make a donation, learn more about my schedule or programs offered by the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, please visit tarabrock.com and our IMCW.org.